


The warfare long

by Sororising



Series: SamSteve week 2016 [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 'Oh dear we have to share a bed' trope, Aftermath of CA:CW, Angst but also fluff, Emotional, Happy Ending, Love Confessions, M/M, SamSteve Week 2016, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 12:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7845874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sororising/pseuds/Sororising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There are some people, you lose them, well. You lose yourself too. Can’t not. I was lost for a hell of a long time, after Riley. Wasn’t sure how to come back.” Sam goes silent for a moment, and Steve holds his breath, not wanting to disturb the air with even a whisper of sound. “Wasn’t sure I wanted to,” Sam says, and - oh, God, how long had Sam felt like that? Had he still been in that lost, broken state when Steve had met him?</p><p><i>This isn’t about you,</i> he reminds himself, and reaches his hand out to Sam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Aw my last fic for SamSteve week! Late I know. This is for day 7, prompt: Hurt/Comfort. Thank you so much to the week organiser/s, I loved writing these two and it gave me so many new fic ideas. This one is fairly angsty (but happy ending!).
> 
> Yesterday I found out that SamSteveBucky week is this week!! I would have loved to write at least a short fic but I genuinely don't have time, I will write one for them some day though I hope.
> 
> Title is from the hymn 'For All the Saints;' all my titles in this series come from it.
> 
> Feedback very welcome. Hope you enjoy <3

* * *

“This is a terrible plan,” Natasha says bluntly.

“I notice that you aren’t saying you won’t do it,” Steve points out, because you need a very precise awareness of language and tone to properly follow any conversation with Natasha.

Often, the trick is paying attention to what she isn’t saying, rather than to her actual words.

She frowns, checking her Widow’s Bites for the second time. “I owe Clint a favour. Also, you would die painfully if I wasn’t there.”

“I’m touched, Romanov,” Steve says. “Are you saying you’d miss me?”

“I’d miss your ass,” she says, because she knows he hates people drawing attention to how, ah, _formfitting_ his uniform always is.

“You’d miss having someone to make fun of every day, you mean.” Steve takes a deep breath. “Okay. We have forty minutes, then we’re jumping as soon as we’re over the Raft.”

“Don’t die,” Nat says.

“I’ll try.”

He holsters his guns, ignoring the absent weight of his shield.

This is going to work.

It has to.

* * *

Somehow, their - admittedly not that well-thought out - plan to break Sam, Wanda, Clint and Scott out of the Raft prison does end up working.

Suspiciously well, actually, to the point where Steve’s wondering if Tony had maybe tweaked with the security just a bit. He doesn’t ask Nat about it though, partly because he knows she’d just say that he’s too fixated on being able to save at least some of his relationship with Tony, and partly because her and Clint are halfway through what he’s pretty sure should be an emotional reunion, but which looks like it’s already turning into a - hopefully playful - argument.

Steve hadn’t had a chance to properly assess anyone’s wellbeing when they were actually in the prison; he’d been focused on getting everyone back to the plane as fast as humanly - well, superhumanly, ideally - possible.

Sam and Clint had stepped up to help out as soon as they’d been released, scouting out their escape route to make sure there were no guards waiting that Nat hadn’t planned for.

Just like Azzano, he thinks with an odd kind of bittersweet pride. Break in anywhere your team are being held captive, and you can break out with ease.

Scott had been a bit too sleep-deprived to be of much help, plus Steve was pretty sure that without his strange little ant-hat thing - he really needs to get that explained to him, some time when no-one's lives are in danger - he couldn’t really have done much in the way of fighting anyway. But he’d been awake enough to strap himself into one of the winches they had left dangling from the plane, which was the main thing.

Wanda - god, Wanda. 

They had put her in a straitjacket. Restrained her, like she was some kind of out-of-control animal.

Natasha had been the one to hack into and unlock Sam and Clint’s cells, and the three of them had made it onto the plane while Steve was still crouching by Wanda, asking her if it was okay if he carried her.

She had nodded, thankfully, though she hadn’t made a sound, even as he strapped them into the last winch and pressed the button that would carry them up.

Once everyone’s onboard, he makes a quick gesture to Nat and Clint that hopefully they’ll interpret as _fly the damn plane so I can check in on my team,_ and goes to find Wanda, who had left as soon as he’d put her down.

He prays that Tony didn’t know about the way she had been restrained. 

If he had done...well, Steve isn’t sure what he’ll do, if he's being honest with himself. He's finding it hard to think clearly right now.

He passes Scott on the way, and stops for a moment to make sure he’s doing okay.

He decides to take the loud snores as a good sign, and moves on.

Sam’s staring out of the window, but he glances over when Steve walks by and gives him a quick thumbs-up.

He’ll check in on Sam later. Nat can make sure Clint’s okay, and Scott can have his well-deserved sleep. 

He needs to make sure that Wanda is - well, not alright. She’s already been through so much, and giving her this to cope with as well seems like the height of unfairness. So, no, he’s not expecting her to be alright. But he needs to know if there’s anything he can do for her, at the very least.

She’s still so young.

She’s not huddled in a corner or anything, which he's going to take as a good sign. She’s sitting in one of the absurdly comfortable reclining seats at the back of the plane, stretching her arms out wide. 

Steve pictures the remnants of the straitjacket he’d taken off her as gently as he could, torn apart in her cell.

God. How could this have happened?

How could he have let it happen?

He staggers a little as either Nat or Clint tilts the plane further upwards, but a moment later he’s there, and he sits down in the seat across the aisle from Wanda.

She lowers her arms, but doesn’t look at him.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, then promptly winces at how pathetic his words sound.

How can he ever, ever begin to make it up to her? To all of them?

“It wasn’t your fault,” she says in her clear, soft voice. The first words she’d spoken.

He promptly feels even worse at the thought of her being the one comforting _him._

Instead of arguing, he tries a different tactic.

“What can I do to help?”

“I can repair any damage inside my mind,” she says. “And I am not hurt physically. I will be fine, Captain.” She pauses, looking closely at him. “Steve,” she says, negating the _Captain._

“Are you sure you don’t need anything? Food, at least? A blanket, you must be cold,” he says, feeling helpless.

She gives him a tiny quirk of her lips - not quite a smile, but not too far from one - and pushes a button on a panel nearby, which slides aside to reveal stores of food, bottled water, blankets and spare clothing that would last for weeks.

“I’m very surprised King T’Challa lent you this,” she says, and he doesn’t bother asking how she’d known where the plane had come from.

“Ah,” Steve says. “About that.”

“You stole it.” 

It isn’t a question.

“No! No, well, officially we did. It’s not like T’Challa could be seen helping us. But Nat said that she was pretty sure there would normally be security around the Wakandan airfield, and there wasn’t any, so we’re hoping he gave the okay.”

The alternative, which is that they’d stolen a million-dollar aircraft from the leader of one of the most powerful countries in the world - and the man who is currently housing the cryostasis chamber containing Steve’s best friend - is really, really not something he wants to think about.

“I see,” Wanda says in an unreadable tone. “I think I want to rest now, Steve.”

“Of course. But, um. Please come get me if you need me?”

She smiles at him, a real smile this time, if a little sad around the edges. “I will. Thank you for rescuing us.”

He isn’t going to say _you’re welcome,_ not when it’s partly his fault they were in there in the first place.

“Always,” he says instead.

“You should go check on Sam,” Wanda tells him before turning away to look into the storage room, pulling out what looks like a packet of Jaffa cakes.

Sam?

Steve had been going to, of course, but there’s an anxious feeling building in his gut as he stands up, wondering why Wanda had said Sam specifically, rather than just _the others._

Maybe it was because she knew that Nat would be watching over Clint, and that Scott was sleeping soundly. Steve still isn't quite sure just what Wanda is capable of with her powers, but he knows that that’s a perfectly likely explanation.

Or maybe, Sam needs his help.

He walks back down the aisle of the plane, towards the tucked away chair where Sam’s still sitting. Still staring out of the window.

Steve hesitates before sitting down next to him. It doesn’t look like Sam wants company right now.

Then again, how many times had Steve curled up on his bed back when he was a kid, secretly wishing for Bucky or his ma to come and find and him and tell him that everything was going to be okay?

Just because he hadn’t wanted to ask for comfort didn’t mean he wasn’t craving it.

“Hey,” he says, sounding more hesitant than he’d wanted to.

“Hi. Thanks for getting us out.”

Sam’s voice, usually so energetic, sounds nothing but dull.

“Are you - how are you doing?” Steve had almost asked _are you okay?_

That would have been an absurd question.

There’s a long pause, which Steve isn’t sure if he should be trying to fill or not.

“I met him once, you know. Before all this, I mean,” Sam says, and Steve doesn’t want to interrupt to ask who he’s talking about.

“He came to visit us, when we were training to be Falcons,” and, oh, of course. Colonel Rhodes. It makes sense; Steve knows that Rhodes was Air Force, after all.

“I looked up to him,” Sam continues, still in that lifeless voice that Steve hates. “Hero-worshipped him a bit, you know. Ril - Riley used to tease me about it. And then - god, it was like it was happening all over again. Like I was up there -”

Sam breaks off and turns his head so that Steve can’t make out even a hint of his expression.

Steve completes the half-spoken sentence in his head.

_Like I was up there just to watch._

Those words have haunted Steve, on and off, ever since Sam had first spoken them to him.

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Sam says, almost silently.

Steve had been about to say _he’ll be okay, you know, Tony won’t rest until he is,_ but when Sam’s words register the sentence catches in his throat. 

He doesn’t even know what he’s feeling right now. Shock. Or - no, stronger than that, even. Horror, almost.

Shame, that he hadn’t even thought about the obvious fact that anyone imprisoned on the Raft would have no idea what was going on in the rest of the world.

God. What must Sam have been going through?

“Sam,” he says gently, wishing that he could take Sam’s hand, give him at least that scrap of physical comfort. “Rhodes is alive.”

Sam jerks his head round, and Steve knows so many of Sam’s expressions, knows them with an intimacy that he doesn’t want to examine too closely, but right now he has no idea what any of the emotions darting across his face might mean.

“He was injured, very badly,” Steve continues, because it doesn’t look like Sam’s in much of a state to speak right now. “He won’t ever walk again without whatever bionic leg suit Tony’s making for him. But he’s alive, and mentally he’s fine.”

“Oh, God,” Sam says, and starts to cry.

Steve has a brief moment in which he allows himself to panic.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, helpless with grief and guilt in a way that constricts his chest, almost like a mockery of his old asthma attacks.

Sam shakes his head mutely.

“Don’t - this isn’t on you, okay,” he says. “I can’t deal with that right now.”

Steve swallows down yet another apology. Sam looks like he’s blinking back the next wave of tears that want to fall.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Steve asks, feeling a stifling kind of desperation at the thought that there might be nothing he can do to help, not right now at least.

Sam is silent for a long time. Steve counts his own heartbeats; they hold steady even when he feels like every part of him is buzzing with a frantic electricity.

Then Sam nods, once, and opens his mouth.

“There are some people, you lose them, well. You lose yourself too. Can’t not. I was lost for a hell of a long time, after Riley. Wasn’t sure how to come back.” Sam goes silent for a moment, and Steve holds his breath, not wanting to disturb the air with even a whisper of sound. “Wasn’t sure I wanted to,” Sam says, and - oh, God, how long had Sam felt like that? Had he still been in that lost, broken state when Steve had met him?

 _This isn’t about you,_ he reminds himself, and reaches his hand out to Sam.

There’s a heartstopping second where he thinks that Sam won’t take it, but then - then fingers are interlaced with his, holding on tightly, as though Steve is somehow managing to be some kind of anchor to Sam, against all odds, and he feels himself breathe just a little easier.

“Don’t say anything,” Sam says, soft enough that Steve only hears him because of his enhanced senses. “Just - don’t go. But don’t say anything, okay?”

He can do that.

Steve stays, and holds on, and breathes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short and interesting article [here](http://www.ebony.com/news-views/black-anger-and-depression#axzz4I7u95P8S) on how black men often don't feel like they can/should express their emotions (including both anger and upset) in certain ways and how damaging stereotypes like 'strong and silent' can be.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is it! Thank you so much for reading, I love writing these two and hope I've done them at least a bit of justice. If you like this fic you might also like my day 2 fic (emotional angst again): [The well-fought fight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7734460)
> 
> Hope you enjoy :)

* * *

_Nothing is ever as simple as you want it to be,_ Sam reminds himself as he steps off the plane.

Steve has Bucky back. Except Wanda had said that Bucky’s back in cryo, for some fucked-up reason that Sam doesn’t fully understand but which he isn’t going to question.

If the guy had genuinely made the choice to go back under, the only thing left to do is respect it.

Steve can figure out how to do that, Sam’s pretty sure. Mostly sure. Vaguely hopeful. 

He’s still reeling from everything he’d learned on the plane ride.

Colonel Rhodes is alive. Thank God. But he’s badly injured; Sam doesn’t want to ask yet what exactly that means.

 _Coward,_ a small, bitter voice that he can usually shut out completely whispers in the very back of his mind.

 _Fuck off,_ he answers it, with the automatic reflex that comes from long practice, and it goes quiet again.

Riley is still dead.

That’s a constant.

He can’t think of more than half his old mantras any more; hasn’t been able to for the past two years.

He can’t tell himself that people don’t come back from the dead, because the proof that they can - in a manner of speaking - stares him in the face nine days out of ten, eating his cereal and occasionally mowing his lawn with its shirt off, because Steve fucking Rogers lives to be a goddamn tease, apparently.

And Barnes - Sam has to accept that he’s back, as well, even if he’s not quite all there yet. 

So it’s not the easiest thing, to convince yourself of the all-powerful ineffability of death, when you’ve got two men from the forties walking the earth looking like they’re in their prime.

 _Riley is dead,_ he thinks instead, and wonders if those simple three words will ever fully lose their impact.

He’d seen fellow soldiers die before, though maybe not as many as most people might think. Gone are the days of the world wars, where troops were seen as close to disposable, almost literal cannon-fodder in a way that makes Sam shudder to think about.

Death was part of life, in his war, but it was usually more as a spectre than as a genuine reality.

Much more likely was permanent, life-altering injuries and disabilities, but that was also much less talked about.

People died, of course they did. It was a war. But they weren’t dropping every day, sometimes not even every month.

Riley had been unlucky. Everyone said so.

_Unlucky._

As though that could ever begin to cover it.

You were _unlucky_ if it rained when you forgot your umbrella, or if the baseball team you’d bet twenty dollars on lost their game.

Riley had been obliterated by a missile aimed at his wings.

That was a hell of a lot more serious than _unlucky._

He needs to start thinking about literally anything else, or he’s going to break down again. And it’s not like Steve would mind, hell, he’d probably awkwardly hold Sam’s hand for another hour if he felt like it might help, but Sam doesn’t have the energy to go through any more emotional revelations right now.

“King T’Challa says we can stay for a few nights, Sam,” he hears, and it takes him a moment to process the words.

“I - no. I have to get back to DC,” he tells Steve, already knowing that it won’t be possible.

“Nat’s working on it. She’ll figure something out. Your name will be cleared; you can go back to work and everything.”

Sam hadn’t missed the _your name_ rather than _our_ part of that sentence, but he isn’t going to follow it up right now. He files it away for later, in a little box in his mind that he likes to call the _Steve fucking Rogers is a self-sacrificing asshole and sometimes I wish I cared slightly less about him because it would make my life so much fucking easier_ cabinet.

The name is a bit of a work in progress. Sam’s still vaguely wondering if Steve’s martyr tendencies and his giant hero complex will fade away at some point, but since he’s pretty sure those are pure Steve Rogers and have fuck-all to do with the serum, he isn’t going to bother holding out much hope.

“I need to sleep,” he says, realising as he says it that he’s never meant those words more in his life.

Not even in the desert, shivering inside a thin layer of canvas, wondering why the fuck he’d expected the searing heat of the day to be any use when it was actually wanted.

Or crouched on the roof of some outpost, waiting for hours, sometimes, for the signal to move, wings ready to unfold at every second, the tension in his muscles making his body feel like an extension of the suit - or the other way around; he was never quite sure.

The Raft had been - different, in a way he isn’t sure how to explain, even to himself.

It wasn’t like he’d thought he’d be in there forever, or anything. He’d known Steve would come for him - for them. 

But the waiting had been a new kind, in there. It wasn’t waiting to spring into action, or for day to break, or for any kind of signal. It was - 

Waiting. That was all. Nothing more to it.

Steve is watching him, he realises. Probably seeing more than Sam would want him to, but if there’s anyone he can trust then it’s the guy who’s had his back through every step of their indefinable relationship so far.

“I’ll show you to ou - your room,” Steve says, and, well, that particular slip is not one Sam’s willing to let go.

He just looks at Steve - who looks about as exhausted as Sam feels, he notices - and raises one eyebrow, knowing that he doesn’t need to do anything else to get his point across.

Steve isn’t blushing, which is a wonder, but somehow he manages to look as though he is anyway.

“Prin - sorry, King T’Challa gave us, um. He seems to be under some, ah, mistaken impressions.” Steve hesitates, and Sam thinks about stepping in and saving him some embarrassment, but this is the most amusement he’s had for quite some time and he’s not willing to let it go just yet.

“Concerning the nature of our relationship,” Steve finishes in a hilariously stiff-sounding voice.

“And you didn’t correct him?”

Ah, there’s that blush. Right on cue.

“You know what, Rogers,” Sam says, deciding that sleep is more important than teasing Steve. “If you promise not to hog the covers, I’m good.”

He ignores the small voice - not the insidious little whisper from before, just his regular old conscience poking its head above ground - telling him that sleeping in the same bed as the guy he’s been trying very hard not to fall for over the past two years is not going to turn out to be one of his brightest ideas.

The exhaustion that’s been hovering around him has finally settled into a bone-deep weariness that's all he can focus on right now. He just wants to pass out for fourteen hours straight, and hopefully his brain will process at least one or two of the events of the past few days while he’s unconscious.

And, alright, he can admit it. It’s been a hell of a day. Week. Decade? He can admit this one little thing to himself.

He’ll sleep better with Steve there.

* * *

Sam wakes up slowly, which is unusual for him. He has a moment of panicked disorientation where his brain tries to process several images at once - prison, desert, Riley, _Rhodes_ \- but he quickly settles his breathing back into his practiced rhythm, and makes an effort to focus on his surroundings.

Most of his, ah, surroundings, appear to be Steve, he realises with a half-delirious shock. Steve isn’t actually holding him, but they’re about as close as it’s possible to be without touching, and they’d fallen asleep _facing_ each other, which - Sam barely ever did that even when he was in an actual relationship with someone; this is very, very weird.

He guesses Captain America has bigger things to worry about than morning breath, then winces when he remembers that Captain America might not even technically exist anymore.

How does that work, anyway? Once Steve’s given up the shield, can someone else take on that mantle? Who would ever want to?

 _Half the world,_ Sam thinks a second later. It’s not like Steve ever let them know what a burden it could be sometimes. They only see the glory, the fame, the real-life superhero - or, they did, at least. Sam has no idea what the general public is thinking about Captain America right now, and he finds that he doesn’t care as much as he probably should.

Jesus, Steve’s adorable when he’s asleep.

Ugh, and Sam’s mildly disgusted with himself for even thinking that.

He doesn’t have time to wonder if he should maybe be moving further back - it’s one thing to let your unconscious mind decide you absolutely have to sleep curled up next to someone; it’s probably less acceptable if you wake up and don’t move an inch - before Steve begins to stir.

Adorable.

For fuck’s sake.

Steve blinks his eyes open slowly, then smiles that lopsided little smile that never fails to - what the _fuck?_

Steve had just leaned forward, placed a gentle, easy kiss on Sam’s lips, and then fallen right back to sleep.

Again, what the actual fuck?

“Um,” is all Sam says, because he feels like his entire mind just went offline.

Then Steve opens his eyes, wide and alert this time, and jerks his entire body away from Sam.

Not the most flattering reaction.

Steve looks like Sam’s about to pull a gun on him. Which isn't quite the expression Sam usually wants to see on anyone he’s sharing a bed with.

“I - I’m sorry!” 

Sam tries to think of something to say in reply that isn’t _um,_ or something else equally incoherent and useless, and comes up blank.

“I thought I was dreaming,” Steve says in his most irritating self-loathing voice, the one that makes Sam want to simultaneously punch him in the face and also hug him for several hours.

Being around Steve Rogers can be a bit of a mindfuck, Sam’s found.

Wait.

Steve -

“You were - dreaming about kissing me?” Sam says slowly, not quite able to believe what he’s saying.

But what other interpretation is there?

Unless Steve had been dreaming about someone _else,_ and Sam’s lips had just happened to conveniently be there when he’d woken up. 

Steve nods, which puts paid to that particular theory.

Well, shit.

Sam can’t help but think of that sad-but-accurate meme, the one that had put a picture of Steve - looking all bedraggled and woe-is-me after a not entirely successful battle - right next to one of an unfairly cute golden retriever sitting out in the rain, looking mournfully up at the camera.

“You’re actually ridiculous,” Sam says, unable to stop himself from laughing, even as Steve’s expression falls even more. “Are you telling me - you, oh my god, I can’t even think of a way to say this without sounding like I’m in fucking middle school.”

“I’m in love with you?” Steve says, and even if it sounded a lot more like a question than a statement, he’ll take it.

Wow.

“You’re an idiot,” Sam says, knowing he sounds horribly fond. “I love you too, Jesus, we could have been doing this for two years, Rogers, get your fucking act together.”

Steve kindly doesn’t point out that Sam hadn’t exactly made a move either. Which is very decent of him, really, Sam could do a whole lot worse.

“I love you,” Steve says in wonder, somehow making the most cliched words in human history sound like no-one’s ever spoken them aloud before.

Sam quickly decides that kissing should happen again before his brain decides to think any more absurdly sentimental thoughts at eight o’clock in the fucking morning.

He leans in, and Steve moves closer again, meeting him more than halfway.

Sam’s brain finally, finally goes quiet, except for the odd stray thought. _Where the hell did he learn how to do that with his tongue?_ is one that repeats itself a couple of times.

Eventually, of course, they draw back from each other again, and Sam remembers real-life things he should probably be doing, like brushing his teeth, or trying to get the United States government to stop calling him a fugitive from justice.

“Thank you,” he says, hoping that Steve will understand at least a few of the words he’s leaving unspoken - _for yesterday, for being there, for never letting me down._

“I love you,” Steve says, instead of _you’re welcome,_ and leans in again.

Sam decides that personal hygiene and international relations can wait until after breakfast.

Some things are more important.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goodbye SamSteve week :(
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, feedback is always welcome!


End file.
